Since the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011, the prefecture of Fukushima has entered the global imagination as a dangerous ground zero, home to a nuclear facility worryingly breached during the natural disaster. To this day, the plant still leaks toxic, radioactive water; on Oct. 3, 430 liters (110 gallons) spilled when workers overflowed a storage tank. Tokyo Electric Power Company said the spilled water had radiation readings nearly 6,700 times the legal limit.

Tens of thousands of “nuclear refugees” from nearby towns are still outcasts in their own land. What remains is a place in limbo—houses abandoned, frozen in time, and a community struggling to make do.

So.. I'm thinking Japan is a country the USA should have more interest in helping out financially and politically.. I mean, just saying.. when you weight in countries like Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.. True, no oil in Japan but an investment in them is an investment in the future of the abandonment of oil dependence and hence a future without fanatical islam, violence and death. Just saying..

I have followed this with much interest. And as I live on the coast of the Pacific Northwest, it is important that I monitor what is going on in Japan. All that radioactive seawater is slowing moving in my direction.

As for Japan, I'm convinced there is a coverup going on and the Japanese government is neck deep in it. As are the officials of TEPCO. This contamination is now EVERYWHERE in Japan. You can't get away from it.

We cannot blame either the quake or the tsunami on the human incompetence that has surfaced since that terrible day.

Human incompetence was to blame? I'd say our capitalistic, profit-driven, under-regulated economic system is to blame. The large corporations do a cost-benefit analyses and don't factor in the destruction of our environment or the cost to human lives.